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A long time ago there was thread named the same thing. It had a great deal of outstanding theaters in it with Anamorphic lens setups. For some unknown reason back then the thread got removed. A shame.

Now all the A_lens users out there don't "play" here much anymore, they are content wit their setups. Obviously being from the A-lens is best camp, I thought I'd try to resurrect the content of that old thread and see how well we can reconstruct it.

Whether you have a Isco on a CineSlide, or a Home Theater Brother's lens on a drawer slide, lets catalog the installations out there for others to see. There was one guy with a Lego based lens transport that was pretty interesting.

Please keep the thread on topic. Start tangents in new threads, they are free and easy to start. Lets see how many photos we can get of current A-lens setups. It may be hard these days since so many of the regulars back then aren't here much anymore, they are watching movies

If I remember correctly, I went first last time [with a old trophy lens] so here is my current set up.

Video:
The Projector is a BenQ W6000 calibrated to 6500K with light output measured at 16 FL. Gamma measured at 2.6. I like it.
The Anamorphic Lens is my Aussiemorphic MK5 [cylindrical]
The Mount is a CAVX Projector Station. I am not using a sled at this time and scale everything for CIH.
The Screen is an 8' wide Curved 2.37 AT screen using SmX 2K material.

Audio:
The LCR speakers are my own design and are an active 2 way system. They have amazing dynamics for their size.
The Surrounds are again my own design and are tonally matched the to the LCRs. They are still passive. I would like to upgrade these to active some day.
The Sub-woofers are also my own design and use Peerless XLS driver technology. They move air!
Processing is THX Select 2
The room whilst small is free standing inside an existing room and has total light control. It does not touch any part of the house except the floor. Its internal floor floats as well. I have treated the first 1/3 with sound absorbing material and half treated the remaining 2/3rds of the room. What is interesting about the front is that is no slap echoes, so the only echoes heard here are recorded in the soundtrack. I have also used some diffusion on the back wall which you can see a part of between the two back surrounds.

Good timing on this for me, as I just recently moved my Prismasonic from it's inverted ceiling mount to an upright shelf mount directly in front of the projector. Even though the Prismasonic is the motorized version that moves the lens from passthru to wide, I changed to a home made mount using a silky smooth sliding Opteka camera slider. These sliders are normally used for time lapse and other photo-centric movement. It has a nice base that is large enough for the A-lens and the movement is very soft and smooth, allowing for good positioning and locking in place. The install is still rough, showing the mark points I determined for movement in and out. I will be putting a stop on the rail for consistent placement in the near future. Here are a couple of shots:

Ray"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place." -Jonathan Swift

Just acquired a Panamorph UH480 and built a box around it to 'camouflage' my latest purchase. One nice benefit to the lens is that, with the added lens and foam insulation around it, it cuts off any sound coming from the projector booth. Now the theater is totally silent.

I built the boxes for the surrounds and just installed the def tech BP/As last weekend. They replaced some Cambridge Audio surrounds and match the def tech BP30s I have across the front. I haven't even fired them up yet to see how they sound.

Well, the old one was a clean, good looking install, too. Might as well ask you to post the one in the middle (MK1?). It was a milestone piece as you moved through the options and improvements toward round (IMO).

I've helped a lot of users go from nothing to cylindrical. Some via prisms, this would be a very busy thread if they didn't all reach nirvana and stop "playing" here on the forum

Well, the old one was a clean, good looking install, too. Might as well ask you to post the one in the middle (MK1?). It was a milestone piece as you moved through the options and improvements toward round (IMO).
I've helped a lot of users go from nothing to cylindrical. Some via prisms, this would be a very busy thread if they didn't all reach nirvana and stop "playing" here on the forum

The MK1 pretty much looked the same as the MK2 [pictured]. The only real difference was there was a type of anti-reflecting coating on the prisms for MK2 and the stand was about 20mm thinner on the MK1. Same mount and and I made a short slide for MK2.

Then came the MK3 which was corrected for CA and housed in a laser cut plastic case. It was much smaller than the massive MK1 & 2.
I actually used one of these with a CAVX Corrector when I tested the Mits HC9000 3D projector. It worked better than expected, so was used for the time I had that projector.

After MK3 came MK4 and my first venture in true cylindrical optics followed by a case redesign to the MK5.

After MK4 came the CAVX Corrector to enhance the MK3. Not perfect, but a significant improvement.

The current set up [top] and the old set up [bottom].
These two anamorphic setups are complete opposite ends of the scale, so yes it has been a long road to video nirvana

As these two images show.
When I took these images, the projector was a BenW5000 and I used both the MK4 cylindrical (same optics as MK5) for the top image and an old "trophy lens (MK2?) for the bottom one.

I have a DIY lens lift with an ISCO-II integrated into the back wall of my HT-room. The projector is a JVC X30. The picture shows the lift with the ISCO-II, seen from the room behind the HT-room. Above the lift there is a shelf that hold the projector. The lift is IR-controlled.

Cool lift. Do you use the X30's lens memory to help with CIH when the lens is moved out of the way? I currently have a HD350 (RS10) and have to manually tweak the zoom (plus shift and focus) for non lens use. I'm getting an X35 soon, so plan to set up the lens memory to help with this.

In the spirit of this thread, I'll find some pictures of my existing setup and edit this post later.

Zooming: Been there, done that, bought the lens, sold the lens...now using e-shift.

Yes, I plan to use the lens memory to compensate for the slight zoom of the A-lens. I`m using Irule and a Global Cache gateway for remote control. Projector and onkyo preamp will be IP-controlled, Lighting and Lumagen Radiance controlled by RS-232, and BD, HD-DVD, lerns lift and screen masking controlled by IR.

Here are some recent photos of my Aussiemorphic Mk IV / Sony VPL-VW60 projector setup. I recently lowered the projector/lens around 200mm to minimise some trapezoidal geometry issues with the projector. The screen is a 130" OZTS Majestic 2.37:1.

The frame you see hanging from the ceiling behind the projector is the frame from my old home made 16:9 screen. One day it will become an acoustic treatment!

I can't speak for the owner of the system above. What I can tell you though is that when using a cylindrical anamorphic lens like the ISCO, XEIT or Aussiemorphic (MK4 or MK5) is that image softness is a non issue. These types of anamorphic lenses are not only corrected for CA (ie there is NONE!), they are also corrected for geometry issues like grid distortion. What sets them apart form any other type of anamorphic adapter is the continuously adjustable astigmatism correction which allow the user to focus the vertical and horizontal lines at the same time at any distance.

A prisms based anamorphic adapter may have additional correction elements (usually cylindrical) but the optics are fixed and non adjustable. Therefore what you get is really dependent on the installation and where both the throw ratio and the throw distance come into play.